Online Meeting & Video Conferencing Stocks that Should Benefit from the Corona Virus

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by Fred Fuld III

Businesses across the country have been changing their travel policies. Over the last several years, many companies with diverse geographical footprints have moved towards video conferencing instead of meetings in person, in order to save on travel, hotel, and car rental costs.

Now companies are stepping up their online meetings for the health and safety of their employees, due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

There are several companies that will benefit from this massive change in how company employees interact with other employees, vendors, customers, suppliers, and others.

One example is Cisco Systems (CSCO), the large hardware and software network company. The company owns the web conferencing applications WebEx and Jabber. However, these divisions are only a small part of Cisco’s business. In the last month, the stock has dropped by over 22%. It trades at 13.5 times trailing earnings, and pays a dividend yield of 3.9%.

In terms of the purer plays, there are a couple stocks to choose from. LogMeIn (LOGM) is a collaboration service company that owns the popular GoToMeeting product, along with Join.me. However, the company has agreed to be acquired for $4.3 billion by the private equity companies Francisco Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Corp., with the closing taking place sometime this year.

Then there is Zoom Video Communications (ZM), the remote conferencing company which offers its Zoom conferencing product. The company is generating earnings but has a nosebleed high forward price to earnings ratio of 256.

Other companies in this industry are similar to Cisco, in that the video conferencing makes up a small portion of their business. These include Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google Hangouts, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Skype and Teams, Adobe (ADBE) Connect, and RingCentral (RNG).

Let’s hope the Coronavirus is eliminated quickly. But in the meantime, at least we have a way of communicating with each other without meeting in person.

Disclosure: Author owns MSFT.

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Over 30 Virtual Reality Stocks - Which are the Purest Plays?

Virtual reality is the creation of an artificial environment that looks very realistic, through the use of computer technology. Virtual reality, or VR as it is commonly referred to, is one of the fastest growing industries in the areas of electronic gaming, entertainment, medical services, and military applications.

The key product utilized in the VR world is the headset, originally prohibitively expensive, but currently dropping in price. As a matter of fact, you can buy a D-scope Pro Google Cardboard 3D Virtual Reality Kit for less than $20.

Historically, one might consider the stereoscope as the first step towards virtual reality. It was invented in the 1800's and consisted of a viewer which allowed the left and right eyes to view two separate but identical pictures, giving a three dimensional effect.

The more modern version is the View-Master, created in 1939, which gave the users the same effect but gave the ability to click through a series of pictures.

Of course, Oculus is considered to be one of the largest virtual reality technology companies, with its popular Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display for video gaming. Mark Zuckerberg saw the writing on the wall and Facebook ended up paying $2 billion for the company in 2014.

Many other companies are involved in virtual reality and augmented reality, such as Adobe (ADBE), Alphabet/Google (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Sony (SNE), but it is currently only a small part of their business. A list of over 30 virtual reality and augmented reality stocks can be found at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

However, although there are no truly pure plays, there are a few smaller companies where the VR business can bring a substantial amount of money to their bottom line.

One example is Immersion (IMMR) which is working on force feedback for virtual reality. Force feedback, also called haptic technology and kinesthetic communication, is the creation of the sense of touch to the user, through the use of vibrations or motions.

Immersion is one of the leaders in haptic technology. The stock has a nosebleed high trailing price to earnings ratio of 901, but a more reasonable forward P/E of 26. The company is debt free and has $2.11 in cash per share.

Kopin (KOPN) develops, makes, and markets virtual and augmented reality gaming, training and simulation products. The company is currently generating negative earnings but is debt free with $1.42 in cash per share.

Microvision (MVIS) makes PicoP scanning technology for three-dimensional sensing and image capture. This company, like Kopin, also generates negative earnings, but is also debt free. It has 22 cents in cash per share. On the positive side, Macrovision's quarterly revenues jumped 311% year over year.

These three companies are small cap, and should therefore be considered very speculative. Many other VR stocks can be found at WallStreetNewsNetwork.com. Hopefully a virtual reality stock will make your profits a reality.

By Stockerblog.com

Disclosure: Author owned AAPL and MSFT at the time the article was written.

Modern picture courtesy of Pixabay.